how horrible would it be...

[HEChicken]

Like most people, I used to think of feeding a live animal to a snake as being horribly inhumane but over time, I have gone the opposite direction and now feel that for the prey it is one of the most humane deaths. In this case, the chicks felt no fear, which would be a large part of the inhumanity. My chicks were weak anyway, so to the point of "not caring" but even had they been healthy, I don't believe they would have recognized the snake as a predator simply because Mom wasn't there to tell them to be afraid. When the snake strikes it is blazingly fast. I still jump every time because even though I know its coming (I can see them coiled up ready to strike), they move so quickly that you can't actually see it happen. Having struck and caught the prey in the jaws, they then coil around it, also amazingly quickly. The way a snake kills is by suffocation - they coil tightly and then when the prey exhales, they tighten the coils slightly so that it is unable to inhale. The prey loses consciously INSIDE of 20 seconds. From that point, even though their heart may still be beating, once they have lost consciousness, there is no more awareness of what is happening to them. The snake will remain coiled tightly for approximately 2 minutes to ensure it is fully dead, then uncoil, seek out the head and begin to swallow it.

When I compare this to other deaths - drowning, fire, bleeding out from a fatal injury - I realized that the speed of it, along with the rapid loss of consciousness due to lack of oxygen, make it one of the more humane ways to die.

 

[rittert3]

constrictors kill very quick especially with smaller prey but if it would make you feel better you could ring the necks and freeze them as most snakes will eat frozen thawed feeder just ask your freind about it first.

 

[newchickmom09]

I agree with everything HEChicken said. It really is amazing how fast that they eat. Our python even though she was 8 feet could move so fast. We would put the rabbits or rats in the cage with her and they wouldn't even know what hit them. It is very quick and you don't have to worry about them suffering. I think you will have a great set up if you go for it.

Some snakes won't eat frozen food. My python wouldn't eat anything that wasn't moving. We had a small albino king snake and he would just slither over the dead mice that we tried to feed them. If your friends snake isn't used to eating dead food then it might not eat them. Besides that seems like extra work that you wouldn't even need to do. Just tell your friend to have a little brooder set up and that way you just give him/her the chicks and he can feed his snake when he needs to.

 

[chixie]

I couldn't knowingly do it.. but snakes have to eat...I am just not a big fan of snakes...I see no problem with other people doing it

 

[chickenma]

if you will have problems with it. don't do it. Some thing like this is personal. What for someone els is horror is for something else normal. like eating your own chickens. So do some don't. As long as you stand by it do what ever makes you feel good.

 

[evonne]

i answered an craigs list ad from a guy looking for hatching eggs... i asked what he was going to do with the chicks so i would know which eggs he would want.. he said he wanted to raise a few of the first bunch, but hten buy more later to feed his snake... he appologized if i was offended and would understand if he didn't hear back from me...
i emailed him back and said hey, the snake's gotta eat too....
i love my birds, and chicks are fun, but once they're out of my hands... if i wanted to make sure they were pampered the rest of their lives, i wouldn't be getting rid of them...
the snake food idea had never occured to me, but it opens a whole new venue of chick placement when you have a 6 yr old that wants to keep your incubator full.. lol...
the guy also mentiones, and i know nothing of snakes.. maybe the others can back this up?? but that the chicks are leaner meat than the feeder rats, and so on a regular captive feeding schedule if you don't want the snake to grow too fast this is better....

good luck with the decision.. it's a personal one...

 

[boxermom]

I've never owned a snake, but my friend had a pet store. (She didn't like snakes either)

Anyway, customers said they killed the rat or mice before they gave it to the snake, so the snake wasn't injured by bites etc.

 

[tonini3059]

I currently have three snakes and unfortunetly none of them are large enough to eat my chickens yet. By the time I know for sure they are roosters they are just a tad too big, I am hoping that the largest snake will be able to eat some of my roos this spring when I start hatching them out. As you may have gathered I think it is fine to feed snakes cull chickens, it beats them going to waste or being abused. Snakes have to eat too as was mentioned before, its just part of nature so to speak.
I personally prefer to feed frozen so the issue of a painful, terrifying death is moot. I do agree that death by a snake is rather quick and a much better way for a chicken to go that some alternatives, but wringing the neck is faster still.
I would go ahead and give her the roosters or sell them if you can.